Proposing a solution and convincing your readers

Once you have vividly described the problem, you are ready to propose a solution and convince your readers. In "Making the Case for Full Employment," an article that appeared in The Christian Century, Marjorie Hope and James Young propose a solution to a problem that everyone recognizes: high unemployment. In the following excerpt from their proposal, the authors move quickly from the problem to their specific proposals — and the supporting evidence. Notice that the audience requires the authors to focus on how churches and church organizers can become part of the solution.

Following the U.S. Catholic bishops' call for full employment in their pastoral letter, "Economic Justice for All," they were often criticized as Utopian. However, more recently there has been a flurry of interest in full employment on the part of economists, church leaders, sociologists, community organizers and others who see it as an achievable goal.

Clergy, union organizers and ordinary citizens have witnessed the suffering and disorientation caused by changes in the world of work: the decline of unions, the migration of American industry to countries where labor costs are cheaper, the replacement of workers by technology, the influx of undocumented foreign workers willing to take jobs that pay below minimum wage, persistently high unemployment among blacks and Hispanics, and the growing numbers of women who labor for low pay. Around the world the gap between rich and poor is widening. Unemployment has reached crisis proportions in many countries that enjoyed prosperity and low unemployment in the '60s and early '70s. The need for concerted action is urgent.

Current advocates of full employment are calling not only for jobs for those people able to work but for jobs with decent pay and working conditions, for equal access to jobs and training opportunities, for improved education for the employed and the underemployed, and for jobs that respect the environment.

Some of the specific proposals being advanced include the following:

• Raising the minimum wage. Michael Harrington suggests that the minimum wage be set somewhere around $5.00 an hour, and that the government guarantee a useful job to everyone who wants to work.
• Shortening the work week. Frank Riessman, co-editor of the journal Social Policy, points out that in 1938, "revolutionary" legislation cut the work week to 40 hours. A new revolution is long overdue. A four-day work week would spread jobs around, give people time to learn skills needed to keep up with rapidly changing technology, and lessen tensions experienced by working parents who want to spend more time with their children.
• Special efforts to reach minorities. Economist John Jeffries points out that although all workers are threatened by the labor crisis, reform efforts should emphasize narrowing the most glaring income gaps — those between males and females and between whites and people of color. The unemployment rate for blacks is well over twice that for whites; the rate for black youth generally exceeds 40 per cent.
• Government support for a radical extension of quality daycare and related family support services, with fees based on ability to pay. Such action is necessary for improving the status of women, whose mean earnings when they work full-time come to only 63 percent of full-time earnings for men. Providing daycare, preschool and other social services would both lessen the psychological and eco¬nomic burden of parents, and would create more jobs.
• A balance between public- and private-sector involvement. In the past, say Frank Reissman and Sheila Collins, full employment initiatives have relied too heavily on directjeb programs, inviting the criticism that they were just "make-ivork" affairs and were pervaded by political favoritism. We  could instead, like  some European countries, subsidize hiring efforts by voluntary associations and private forms. Other approaches would include job vouchers for the unemployed and tax subsidies for corporations that create jobs in areas of high unemployment.

Who would benefit from a coordinated full employment policy? Virtually all Americans. More jobs mean more tax dollars collected and fewer funds paid out in unemployment insurance and welfare. Studies show that an increase of 1 million jobs would reduce the federal deficit by $40 billion. Thus a national health plan and daycare program could be paid for with the revenue created by full employment.

Forging the political will to achieve full employment is an enormous task. Church groups that recognize full employment as a cornerstone of a just social order have limited resources. Hence mainline Protestant denominations have generally chosen to play the catalytic role of sup¬porting local and regional coalitions of religious, labor and community groups. Through these alliances, and directly from the pulpit, they have attempted to educate their constituencies about the human damage wrought by joblessness and about the possibilities for a new policy, and they have provided financial support for community organizing.

The question confronting all of us is: do we have the political will to make full employment a reality?